fullness v. balance; Hymn that Meanders; Guo Pei

In the February 21 print issue of Women's Wear Daily, Lorna Koski has a full-page feature on Pioneers of the Possible, a book by Angela M. Nazarian on twenty visionary women, including Taiwanese Dharma Master Cheng Yen, Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, and Simone de Beauvoir. I'm mulling over this paragraph in particular:

One insight that has come to her, Nazarian notes, is that the most impressive women are not striving for balance, but for fullness in their lives. "They pack their lives with things that are really meaningful," she says. "They concentrate on their strengths; they know what their talents are, so they aren't so bothered by their weaknesses."

(I'm not sure this is a helpful construct for me, but it is thought-provoking. I do like the quote from Estée Lauder that ends the article: "If you want to succeed, make the best of what you have. That's a secret to beauty, as well.")

I became curious about Maria Nazos's A Hymn that Meanders after reading her essays at Boxcar, in particular "Silence in the Rough: When Your First Book Breaks Through the Truth." It contains bold, lush lovesongs about and elegies of broken people, and reminds me quite a bit of Lynda Hull's work. My eyes were probably as round as the proverbial saucers by the time I finished reading "My Mother's Nipples," and I also marked "Mink Rooftop," because of these lines: "Now I'm stuck / in this room telling myself we were more than two broken sticks rubbing / together.

Back to WWD. In the February 22 issue, Huang Hung writes about Guo Pei. My kind of gal:

Guo's husband is a Taiwanese businessman who runs a family textiles business. "When we got engaged," Guo said, smiling, "he asked me whether I wanted a rock on my finger or 50,000 yards of free fabric. I took the fabric."